Motty asked that he please be allowed inside so as not to miss any more of the services.
The assistant rabbi kindly asked that Motty leave the premises before he was forced to call the police.
The doors opened and Rabbi Epstein and Rabbi Akiva stepped outside.
A discussion ensued.
The central question, it seemed, was whether Motty was to be considered kosher or traif. Motty explained that he should be allowed to enter the shul because religion is based on belief, which is a function of thought, which is a function of your brain, which is located in your head. So, Motty observed, the head was more important than the body.
The assistant rabbi disagreed. “When God prohibits the bringing of the flesh of an unfit animal into the Temple, he specifically says flesh. Why? Because God is telling us that no matter how pure the thoughts of the pig might be, his body is still what matters most. We learn from this that the body matters more than the head.” Motty’s body was prohibited from entering the shul, the assistant rabbi declared; however, if they were to cut Motty’s head off, they would certainly be permitted to carry it inside.
Rabbi Epstein shook his head. “Even if we knew for certain,” he said, “that a pig had only pure thoughts, and that the pig believed with his whole pig heart in The Holy One Blessed Be His Name, the ancient rabbis still forbid us to eat it.” Thus, Rabbi Epstein held, irrespective of whether they could allow Motty into the synagogue, they were, without question, prohibited from eating him.
“That’s utterly ridiculous,” argued Rabbi Akiva. “If the pig believed in Hashem—as it is written, With all of your heart and all of your mind—the ancient rabbis would certainly deem the pig kosher.” Therefore, according to Rabbi Akiva, they could not bring Motty into the synagogue, but they could probably eat him. And so it was decided.
“Motty?” the assistant rabbi called out.
But Motty had already gone home.
His mother had still not awakened. He regretted having frightened her so, and decided to prepare the Shabbos lunch for the family so she could rest a bit longer. He also built a second level to the deck and installed some landscape lighting. For entertaining.
He was in the kitchen preparing a kugel tray when he heard his father come through the front door, speaking loudly with a number of other familiar voices.
“I’m in the kitchen!” Motty called out. He recognized the other voices as belonging to Rabbi Brier and Rabbi Falkenstein.
“We didn’t see you outside shul,” his father was saying, “so we just …”
The three men stepped into the kitchen and froze at the sight of him.
Motty tried to explain.
“I woke up like this.”
“Shaygitz!” Motty’s father spat.
“I’m not a shaygitz!” said Motty, “I’m your son, Motty. Listen! Listen, it’s just some kind of a miracle, a Shabbos miracle. I don’t know how or why it happened, but I can’t see why it should make you feel any diff—”
Motty’s father smashed him across the face with his Talmud Bavli. The oversized hardcover book caught Motty just below his left eye, and he fell to the floor.
“Traif!” yelled his father. “You dare to touch our food with your goyishe hands! You anti-Semitic …”
He raised the Talmud up to strike the hideous creature again, but Rabbi Brier and Rabbi Falkenstein intervened.
A discussion ensued.
“Rabbi,” asked Motty’s father, “should not a father correct his son? Is it not written ‘Teach them to your children and their children after them?’”
Rabbi Brier explained that while the Torah certainly encourages the hitting of a no-good, rotten child, if the child is traif, you are forbidden from hitting him with a holy book. He suggested that they strike Motty again, only this time with a leather belt, or perhaps a flat piece of unholy wood.
Rabbi Falkenstein disagreed. “Are we not commanded to ‘make for yourself a gate out of the Torah?’ Could that not be interpreted as permission to use the Torah for your own defense? And is it not true that the best defense is a good offense?”
Rabbi Brier concurred, but added that, if possible, the blows should be concentrated on the head and face, which they knew for certain to be kosher.
Rabbi Falkenstein praised Motty’s father for never once hitting his son below the neck, and they all agreed that Motty’s father was obligated to continue pummeling Motty with his sacred book. They shook hands, and Rabbi Brier handed Motty’s father the Talmud.
“Motty?” his father called out.
But Motty had already gone.
He was on his way to his yeshiva, hoping that at least his friends would accept him. He already knew from the incident at shul that he probably wouldn’t be allowed inside the building, so he stood outside and shouted up at the dormitory window.
“Yitzi! Yoel! Yankel!”
They all came outside to meet him.
Motty offered Yankel a handshake, but Yankel held his hands up.
“Traif,” Yankel explained.
“Come on, guys, check it out,” said Motty, pulling up his sleeve to show them his tattoo. When he flexed his biceps, the woman on the sword seemed to dance. He’d been thinking about getting more ink done.
“Maybe on my back, you know? Eagle wings or something.”
Yitzi stepped forward. “Motty, it’s a big question if we can still be your friends.”
A discussion ensued.
Yitzi explained that he was basing his reasoning on the prohibition from Deuteronomy, “Do not intermarry with them, for they will turn you onto their gods.” “If marrying was not allowed,” Yitzi put forth, “can we not also assume ipso facto that friendship, too, is prohibited?”
Yoel disagreed. He pointed out that the greater commandment to love your neighbor as you love yourself specifically avoids saying whether the neighbor is Jewish or non-Jewish. Why? “To show us that when it comes to human acts of kindness—such as friendship—religious orientation is of no consequence.” According to Yoel, their friendship wasn’t merely allowed, it was obligatory.
Yankel argued. “On the contrary,” he said. “When Hashem commands us to go to Canaan, He says ‘And you shall drive them out of your midst and destroy their idols and images.’ What do we learn from this? That not only are we forbidden to be friends with Motty, it is incumbent upon each one of us to kill him.”
“Yes,” agreed Yitzi. “With a sword.”
“Blessed is Hashem,” said Yoel, checking his pockets for a sword. “Motty?” he called out, looking around.
But Motty had already gone back home.
He decided he would just leave. Go somewhere else. Even back when his body was Jewish, he’d often suspected that his mind was not.
He could find a place in the city, transfer into NYU, maybe take a film class.
He could find people who would love him for who he was, not for who he was no longer.
When Motty got home, he was met by several officers from the Rockland County Sheriff’s Department. They wanted to question him in connection with the death of his mother.
“May I quickly use the bathroom?” Motty asked.
Officer Landry felt that they should not allow him to use the bathroom, as the Sergeant had specifically commanded them to “apprehend” the suspect.
“Yes,” argued Officer McKenna, “but is it not written “To Protect and Serve?”
In the living room, the rabbis were debating whether Motty should be punished as a Jew who kills another Jew or as a non-Jew who kills a Jew. Motty walked past, went upstairs, tied a rope tightly around the part of his body where the Jewish part met the goyish part, and quietly hung himself in the shower.
MOTTY sat up in heaven and looked down on his funeral taking place below. A black hearse led the procession, followed closely by his father’s beige minivan and a black Lincoln Town Car full of rabbis. They drove all the way to the Gates of Zion Cemetery in Spring Valley, where they were stopped at said gates by the
chief of security.
There seemed to be some confusion.
A rabbi from the cemetery office came hurrying down to the gates. His name was Rabbi Pearlstein.
Rabbi Pearlstein was of the opinion that Motty’s body could not be buried in a Jewish cemetery because it had a tattoo, though if they were to cut his head off, it would be permissible for them to just bury that.
A discussion ensued.
Motty laughed.
Motty’s father looked around. Who was laughing?
“Motty?” he called out.
But Motty had already gone.
Prophet’s Dilemma
AND behold God spoke to Schwartzman late Tuesday evening, right in the middle of Leno’s monologue, saying, “Make for yourself an ark, for you and for your entire family, for I have found you righteous in your generation.”
“Now?” asked Schwartzman.
He had to be kidding. It was 11:50 PM on a week night—Schwartzman had an 8:30 with a client the next morning, a 9:30 breakfast with the head of his department and a shrink appointment with Dr. Herschberg at 11:00 which meant that he’d have to catch the 6:00 AM to Grand Central at the latest.
“It’s almost midnight.”
“Shh!” spat Mrs. Schwartzman.
Mrs. Schwartzman liked Jay Leno a lot more than she liked God.
Jay Leno didn’t show up at their house at whatever unholy hour he wanted. Jay Leno didn’t threaten to wipe humanity from the face of the Earth. Jay Leno didn’t tell her husband to build a golden altar in their backyard and sacrifice upon it one she-goat.
Which, by the way, is called a doe.
“Can’t we do this in the morning?” whispered Schwartzman.
Mrs. Schwartzman aimed the remote control at the TV set and turned the volume up as high as it would go. She held the button pressed for a few extra seconds—in case He missed the point.
“We’ll be right back with more headlines,” said Jay.
“I will make you into a great nation,” said God, “and I will bless you.”
“Yeah, yeah,” whispered Schwartzman. “Tomorrow.”
···
IF you ever hear a voice in your head telling you that he’s God and he’s going to bless you and your children and your children’s children, pretend you didn’t hear Him.
Schwartzman, like so many others before him, had made the classic mistake.
“Who’s that?” he called out when first God spoke to him. “Hello? Who’s there? Who’s talking?”
Schmuck.
The two long years since had been filled with one ludicrous, Lordly request after another. Slaughter this, banish that. Go there, leave here. Wear this, cut off that. I’ll kill you, I’ll stone you, I’ll flood you.
Then there had been the complaints, of course, mostly from his irate neighbors who would no longer even speak to him.
When he’d applied for a building permit to reconstruct the ancient Babylonian temple in his backyard, the Kleins down the road complained. He’d tried explaining to God the intricacies of residential zoning restrictions, but God wasn’t hearing it, and the Kleins eventually filed a restraining order against him.
His letter to the president demanding he “let my people go” brought with it Secret Service surveillance vans on the street and ominous black helicopters in the sky; his claim that “God told me to write that” only brought tabloid reporters and camera crews.
And then there was the morning Mrs. Epstein opened her bedroom window, looked out the window and saw Schwartzman next door, wrestling a young goat across the yard and dragging it up the ramp of a crudely built altar. Cursing and swearing, Schwartzman finally managed to get the poor animal to lie down. He lifted a hatchet high above his head and buried it deep in the she-goat’s neck. Blood sprayed across the lawn. It sprayed onto the swing set, and onto the deck and onto the white picket fence separating the Schwartzmans’ yard from hers. It took quite a bit of hacking before the goat’s head was finally severed and fell with a thud to the ground. Covered in blood and drenched in sweat, Schwartzman threw down the hatchet, held out his arms and looked up to the heavens. “There!” he shouted.
“Happy?”
Mrs. Epstein screamed.
Schwartzman held up his hands. “Just a sin-offering, Mrs. E!” he called out. “Mrs. E?”
But Mrs. E had already dialed the police.
In the days following, she registered formal complaints with the mayor, the governor and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
A small crowd of animal rights activists met on Schwartzman’s lawn. “One, two, three, four! Don’t you kill no goats no more!”
This was no way for them to start a family.
THIS is no way for us to start a family,” Mrs. Schwartzman had said.
She had made it clear very early on that she didn’t want God around when the baby arrived.
“It’s difficult enough to raise a child these days,” she had said.
She was right. Surly, bossy, paranoid, violent. God was a terrible influence.
“I’ll get rid of Him,” Schwartzman had promised.
“No, you won’t,” God had answered.
“Yes, I will,” Schwartzman had answered.
And Schwartzman arose early the next morning, and he did call out to God from behind the wheel of his Buick.
“What’s an ark, anyway?” Schwartzman asked God as the old engine warmed up.
“It’s like a boat,” said God.
“What kind of boat? A big boat or a little boat?”
“It’s a big boat,” said God. “Like a yacht.”
Schwartzman owned a hammer, a hatchet, one of those screwdrivers with the x-shaped end and what he strongly suspected was a wrench (it was a vise-grip).
“And I’m supposed to build this yacht? Myself?”
“I built the world by myself,” said God.
“Again with the ‘I built the world.’”
The guy couldn’t go a week without mentioning it.
Lightning flashed, thunder rumbled.
“Behold!” shouted God. “And you shall go forth from this place to the Home Depot on Route 17, or the Lord Your God shall smite you with a consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with …”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Schwartzman, “I know. And with the burning and with the sword and with the blasting.”
He put the car in reverse, and slowly backed out of his driveway.
Dick.
···
EXCUSE me,” Schwartzman said to the Home Depot man, “can you tell me where to find tar?”
“Tar?” asked the Home Depot man. “What’re you using tar for?”
“I’m building an ark,” said Schwartzman.
If there was anything that two years of completing God’s preposterous homework assignments had taught Schwartzman it was that there was absolutely nothing you could tell Home Depot Man you were building that would surprise him, that would get any reaction from him at all, for that matter, aside from the usual skepticism about your choice of building materials.
“I wonder if you could help me. I’m building a Babylonian temple. A messianic chariot. An altar for ritual animal sacrifice.”
“An altar, eh?” Home Depot Man had asked. “You gonna be using fire on that?”
Home Depot Man shoved the rest of his egg sandwich into his mouth, and wiped his fingers on his orange “Do-It-Yourself Superstore!” apron.
“An ark, eh?” he said, licking his fingers.
From Altars to Ziggurats! thought Schwartzman. From Abraham to Zebediah!
“What kind of wood you using?” asked Home Depot man.
“Cypress.”
“Cypress?”
“That’s what the guy wants,” said Schwartzman.
“He’d be better off with cedar,” said Home Depot Man. “Bug resistant. I’d go with cedar.”
WHEN Schwartzman got home, he was met by an angry God and an angrier wife.
“What
the hell is this?” demanded God as Schwartzman climbed out of the car.
“It’s cedar,” he said, slamming the door.
“I know it’s cedar,” said God, “I wanted cypress.”
“What is the big deal?” asked Schwartzman. The guy could be so fucking literal. “It’s bug resistant. The guy said to go with cedar.”
Ten miles away, at the far end of the Home Depot plumbing and heating aisle, a sixty-gallon water heater rolled off its forty-foot-high shelf and landed squarely on Home Depot Man below, killing him instantly.
“What the hell is this?” demanded Mrs. Schwartzman from the front porch.
“It’s cedar,” said Schwartzman.
“I know it’s cedar,” said Mrs. Schwartzman. She turned with a huff and went back into the house, slamming the front door behind her.
SOMEONE’S after me,” said Schwartzman.
“Mmm hmm,” said Dr. Herschberg, scribbling on his note pad.
“He’s spoken to me. He won’t leave me alone. I’ve tried to be nice.”
“He’s spoken to you?”
“He asks me to do Him favors.”
“What kind of favors?”
“Favors.”
“Have you called the police?”
Dr. Herschberg was a prominent psychiatrist in Manhattan, with a patient list that included many famous New Yorkers. Stalkers were his bread and butter.
Most stalkers, explained Dr. Herschberg, are lonely, isolated members of society, seeking intimacy or friendship. The stalking is simply a partial satisfaction of their voyeuristic, sadistic tendencies.
“That sounds like Him.”
“You need to stop responding,” said Dr. Herschberg.
“That’s what my wife said,” replied Schwartzman. “He’s not easy to ignore.”
“Are you afraid he might become violent?”
“If history’s any indication.”
Dr. Herschberg leaned forward.
“Every time you respond, you’re positively reinforcing his behavior. Every time you answer him, he’s getting what he wants.”
Beware of God Page 7